Monterey Peninsula Water project: Locals won't have to travel to weigh in on latest study

Local residents will get a chance next month to weigh in on a state water board study on the critical water rights issue at the center of the Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project. And they won't have to drive to Sacramento to do so.

This week, the state Water Resources Control Board announced it would conduct a June 4 public workshop on the study on the Monterey Peninsula. The local session, to be held at the Monterey Institute of International Studies' McCone Irving Auditorium, will also allow California American Water and local officials to provide the board with an update on the project.

Carmel Mayor Jason Burnett said the local state water board hearing will offer a chance for the Peninsula to show "a level of community consensus we haven't seen here for a generation" on the quest for a new water supply capable of complying with the state water board's own order requiring a major cutback in pumping from the Carmel River by 2017.

The Peninsula mayors water authority, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors and the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District have all lined up behind the latest proposal.

Cal Am spokeswoman Catherine Bowie also called the hearing "an important opportunity" to update the board on compliance with the state water board's order to begin reducing pumping from the Carmel River, along with progress on the water supply project.

Bowie noted that Cal Am's latest compliance report — dated April 24 — included a number of updates on a range of issues, such as production from the river, the Sand City desalination plant and efforts to fix leaks and reduce the amount of unaccounted for water.

While Cal Am has already informed the state water board that its project won't meet the board's 2017 deadline, local officials have indicated they don't plan to ask the board to relax the deadline next month, or any time soon, though that will almost certainly have to happen eventually.

The state water board hearing will kick off a busy month for the $400 million Peninsula water project, which includes a Cal Am-owned desalination plant, along with supplemental aquifer storage and recovery, and groundwater replenishment proposals. A workshop on the groundwater replenishment project, sponsored by the state Public Utilities Commission, is set for June 12; a pair of deadlines for settlement agreements aimed at resolving a series of project-related issues are set for June 14 and June 28, respectively; and the project's draft environmental impact report is scheduled to be released some time in June.

None of those issues are any more crucial to the success of Cal Am's project than its ability to find a viable source of feeder water for its planned desal plant, and the state water board's study on the issue is regarded as a critical element in that effort.

The study, requested by the PUC and released in December, suggested Cal Am have a chance to prove its proposal to tap the overdrafted, seawater-intruded Salinas Valley groundwater basin wouldn't harm other basin water users.

Cal Am lauded the study as being consistent with its position on pumping from the basin, suggesting the study supported the company's position that no water rights were needed to pump seawater, and that the targeted brackish water is not being used and should be considered "surplus."

Cal Am has insisted any impact could be offset through a range of measures such as returning any percentage of fresh water taken from the basin through the Castroville Seawater Intrusion Project and paying for increased pumping costs or upgraded wells. The company is hoping to begin drilling test wells this fall, though there is some question whether permits for that work will be approved by then.

Company officials have also agreed to attempt to draw its desal feeder water from a shallower aquifer, and collaborate with the county Water Resources Agency on a groundwater monitoring program.

The study calls for gathering more specific information on the nature of the basin and aquifers where Cal Am is seeking to draw water. It suggests a series of tests to determine that quality of the feeder source and the potential impact on the basin.

Hydrologists for the Salinas Valley Water Coalition, a group of agricultural interests concerned about the impact of Cal Am's plans on its efforts to halt seawater intrusion in the basin, and the PUC, which is reviewing Cal Am's water supply project application, debated the report.

Coalition hydrologist Tim Durbin argued that Cal Am assumptions regarding the basin were flawed and taking water would likely result in more severe impacts than anticipated. A PUC hydrology consultant, Geoscience Inc., argued in turn that Durbin's assumptions were based on faulty information.

Meanwhile, the Peninsula mayors decided as a condition of their support that Cal Am should address Durbin's concerns about drawing water from the Salinas Valley basin, and pursue parallel, alternative plans for a desal feeder water intake system outside the basin.

Durbin has since called for Cal Am to conduct a more extensive 16-month evaluation of the basin and the actual impact of sustained pumping.

Local groups such as LandWatch and attorneys for the Ag Land Trust were also critical of the study in letters sent to the state water board during a public comment phase that ended May 3.